Clustering as a Way to Lower Capital Barriers: The Case of the Cashmere Sweater Cluster in Zhejiang

Understanding how small enterprises overcome capital barriers is the key to understanding China's rapid development. The literature traditionally emphasizes the development of financial market to raise small amount of loan. By studying the division of labor in the cashmere sweater cluster in Puyuan and the cash flow in the course of daily operation, this paper, argues instead that industry clusters lower capital entry access through the division of labor; various entities in the cluster obtain the capital required for daily operation by taking advantage of individual social capital and endogenous capital in the cluster.